Religious holidays, that is one time in the year that people who feel and think that religion is, at best, silly and not helpful in the progress of the human race, where atheists might find themselves in trouble. On the one hand there are many nice and fun traditions that are tied into the religious meaning of the holiday, and on the other following those traditions might suggest that the atheist is not so much against religion.

Lets try and make this easy. Atheism in its core is the rejection of the existence of gods, directly following that it is a contemporary objection to organized religion and those who profit from making other believe or follow a certain religion. This blog is trying to point out the many current day injustices and problems caused by all religions, however it does not go after the believers and followers, and this we do not do simply because everyone has a right to believe whatever they want, and they are also free to worship and practice, just as long as they do not force anyone to do so, or hurt anyone in the process.

Traditions are not exclusive to religions, some people have their own Monday night Football tradition which they follow much more strictly than they do Christmas. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an atheist hiding Easter eggs in the garden for his children to look for, especially if the egg hunt is a part of their persons culture and childhood memories. This is the moment where one keeps traditions for his or hers own sake and abandons the symbolic religious meaning that comes with it.

Many might be surprised to find out that even though it seems that many of the traditions we follow have been practiced the same way for (at least) hundreds of years, most of the religious traditions are new and modern, lasting for 200-300 years at best. So there should be no fear of “breaking” the chain, or changing things, simply because our forefathers have done the same, over and over again.

Have a fun weekend, enjoy your family and friends, eat a big Mazza Ball and delicious chocolate Easter eggs, and remember to tell everyone you meet that you love the tradition but reject the hold religion has on it.

After the first post “we are the 99%” some felt they needed to tell me how this protest has another, pretty nasty, side to it, and unfortunately they are right. Some of the people in this protest are expressing racist views (not only about Jews by the way) and are holding opinions that should have been gone from the world long ago.

The idea that all Jews are rich is not only plain stupid and racist, it is also wrong. For those who are not aware of it, the idea of the tents in wall street came from Israel, where an overwhelming 25% of the population went out to demonstrate because they can not afford to buy a place to live in (meaning they can not find an affordable home in any part of the country) so it looks like many Jews in Israel are not rich, actually it looks like they are poor.

While the anger towards Wall Street and the banks is (at least) somewhat justified the tendency of finding whole groups who profit from the suffering of others belongs to the bloody human history, and is deeply rooted there. The fact that new left wing liberals are now becoming the new fascists is troubling enough, add to this the easy solution of finger pointing and blaming the Jews and you get history rewritten, with only 60+ years separating us from the actual events.

The founders of the Egyptian Nazi party have come forward and did a television interview to explain who they are and what they want, it might sound a little simplistic to think that since they dubbed themselves a “Nazi” party that they would follow the general rule of Nazism that was established a long time ago in a land far, far away. However these guys say that they are not anti Jewish at all, they are also not support the idea that the Aryan race is Superior rather that it is the Egyptian race, and that the whole of the Arab race closely follows.

So not against Jews, but very much against the state of Israel (“because it puts in danger Arab ideology”), not Aryan but Arab supremacy and some blurred ideas about nationalism in that good old “hate the other” as much as possible way, however there is a twist to all of this nonsense, they are Muslim, and as Muslims it will be silly to reject a German born fair skinned blue eyed man since it is the wish of Islam to submit everyone to the law of that religion, so racism seems a little counter productive for this Nazi “light” party.

So the main motive in the rhetoric that you hear from them is mostly that they want to bring about the superiority of the Egyptian race, meaning it is not already there – but that there needs to be an effort to bring it to par with its Nazi idealism, meaning it is more of an aspiration to be a Egyptian Nazi, one that does not hate Jews at all and that has no racism but only religious segregation in mind.

Confused? me too. Oh well, maybe they are just a little shy of saying that they are pretty much like the original Nazis, only in their Egyptian-Arab formation.

In the last few weeks it has become clear that this world, with all its nations and peoples, is carefully stopping human progress and starting to fall back, with a clear purpose and conscience the leaders of this world do not believe in pushing the envelop, they prefer to deal with the banal and insane instead.

And so, our last superpower, the last nation on earth that could say it has done for humanity and for human progress more than any other in the recent decades, is now shutting down its NASA space program, its universities are seeking – and receiving funding by the millions from oil rich countries in the middle east so they will, at least at pretense, seem to be joining hands in a pro Islam and anti Israel campaign, and that can not solve its increasingly worrying economic problems with substantial resolve.

Our main economic superpower (China) can say nothing about contribution to human progress (maybe some effort for the Olympics can count), and any past contribution is made to look ridiculous by the middle ages approach to human rights and human decency, a country that is an economic giant but has millions working in semi slavery conditions, with poor health systems and an increasing ruthlessness towards any criticism, political or artistically.

A world in which a former superpower (Russia) is putting in all its weight to block a UN move against a country that is now, as these lines are being written, executing dozens of its citizens, where rivers run red from the hundreds of bodies that are filling it, and where tanks and artillery are used against unarmed population in order to have them submit to the rule of the current power.

Instead of reaching out to space, understanding our role in this universe and studying more about the origins of life the USA is now focusing on how to defend itself from enemies who believe that their god wants them to slaughter anyone who does not believe in him/her/it, instead of China getting on with human progress and respect for its citizens it is contemplating the situation of a nuclear Asia, and the terror of Chineese muslims in Xinjiang, and Russia, who has become the new ultra capitalist player in the world is more worried about the payments from Iran for the nuclear installations than the huge gap between rich and poor.

This is the world we all live in, only now it is moving backwards instead of forward, and no one even tries to hide it.

It looks like since the deranged attacks of Oslo took place that many in the media have been more than happy to blame everything that is not left-liberal or far left socialists for some responsibility for the actions of a crazy and clearly extremely violent man. And it so happens that some also point a finger at the so called “new” atheists for advocating their views on religions and especially the dangers of totalitarian Islam in the West in particular and in the world in general, this type of blacklisting is very easy and comfortable for them to do since the murderer wrote a manifesto of some 1,500 pages in which he had sufficient space to mention almost any other name in atheism or the anti Islamic movement, as well as the oppressors of multiculturalism in Europe and in the world.

It is a grave sign when journalists just run a search on a 1,500 pages document to find names that they want to slur and then use the twisted demented mind of a murderer as a weapon against thinkers and activists of peaceful and democratic movements, and because it seems that right now anything but a liberal multi-cultural minds are accepted in Europe it is only fair that we try and present the real atheist mind, and the idea behind it.

Just to get the obvious out of the way, Atheism has nothing to do with violence, it has nothing to do with social or cultural tolerance, it is simply the opposition to the idea of god or gods, out of this main idea there is the growing criticism of the way theocracies run themselves and how they destroy the lives of the people living in them, as well as the never ending task of reminding the world how religions acted when they were more powerful.

An Atheist should not have any problem with someone practicing faith in their homes, without forcing anyone to do so and without hurting anyone in the process of practicing. There is nothing wrong with anyone wanting to believe anything and doing so privately, however it does become a problem when the ideas of religion find their way out and are being forced or obsessiveness introduced to a non-believer population. So for someone to eat Kosher meat in their homes is perfectly normal to have a whole city with exclusively kosher butchers and kosher supermarket meat is not acceptable.

For anyone to pray five times a day at home on his or her own time is not a problem, but when the believers gather in the streets and block access to the road, create a public disturbance and terrorize other habitats is not acceptable. An atheist should not fight the individual right for worship but the totalitarianism of religion and the way it constantly tries to sneak up behind everyone else.

If you are an atheist try and focus on objecting to the idea of a god, or gods, it is no small task, unfortunate. It is not an objection to the person worshiping but the idea that the person needs to worship anything or anyone to begin with that is the real essence of atheism.